The nation's first group of alternative-service conscripts to serve as teachers at Taiwanese schools overseas are set to depart tomorrow for their designated countries, a vice minister of education said yesterday.
"The group, consisting of five individuals, will each go to the school of their choice and serve as math or physics teachers for one-and-a-half years," said Political Vice Minister of Education Fan Shiun-liu (
The Taiwanese schools are private schools set up to teach the children of expatriate Taiwanese businessmen. The schools follow the curriculum taught in Taiwan and receive a small subsidy from Taiwan's Ministry of Education.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
"The purpose of their service will be to help make up for the shortage of teachers faced by the Taiwanese schools," said Fan, who, two years ago, first proposed deploying alternative-service conscripts as teachers in the schools.
Under the Alternative Service Law, which was passed in January 2000, eligible conscripts may serve as policemen, firemen, environmental protection workers or nurses for the elderly and handicapped in lieu of military service.
The law was amended last year to add teaching in overseas Taiwanese schools to the list of professions open to such conscripts, precisely because of the teacher shortage faced by the schools.
A 22-month period of military service is mandatory for men in Taiwan, except those suffering from designated physical ailments.
"Of 195 applicants, 16 met the minimum qualification of having teacher certificates with expertise in math or physics," said Kao Thun-yun (
"Of those 16, these five individuals were selected because they were the top five in our selection process.
"We specifically wanted teachers with expertise in math and physics because these are the subject areas in which the schools have indicated they currently have the greatest need," Kao said.
There are Taiwanese schools in Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and a Thai-Chinese International School in Thailand.
There are also two private Taiwanese schools in China but they are not eligible for alternative-service conscripts, Kao said, because "the Ministry of Defense and the Chinese authorities do not permit Taiwanese individuals with the status of a soldier to carry out such work in China."
"For obvious reasons," Kao added, "these two schools neither use the complete ROC educational curriculum nor fly the ROC flag like the other six Taipei Schools."
In December, two men serving their alternative military service with an agricultural technical corps in Gambia caught malaria.
The men, part of a group of 35 sent abroad as agricultural and medical recurits, both recovered.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats